Thoughts on and plans for Apple's switch to ARM?

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Jasoco
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Thoughts on and plans for Apple's switch to ARM?

Post by Jasoco »

So Apple announced last week that they're switching to ARM processors. Namely Apple's own in-house designed A series chips. The same stuff in iPhones and iPads. Now obviously Löve will probably still work since Rosetta 2 will allow for translation of the old Intel binary to ARM compatibility on the fly. But long term of course Löve would eventually need to be ported. But here's the thing. Löve already kinda has an iOS version doesn't it? I'm imagining how a fully optimized ARM version of Löve made specifically for an ARM Mac would run if it used all Apple's APIs and was based on Metal and all that jazz.

The first official ARM Macs are coming later this year and as soon as a Mac mini is available I look forward to doing some benchmarks. Seeing how a translated Intel version of Löve compares to the native Intel version on my MacBook and eventually how a native ARM version of Löve runs compared to the translated one.

Are there issues with porting Löve fully to ARM/A-series processors? Stuff that is missing or doesn't have compatible libraries yet?

Also, hello again. Haven't been here in a while. Haven't really been into coding for a long time. But I'm always thinking about what I'd make if I got back to it. Glad to see Löve isn't dead and I hope it doesn't. At least until an ARM version comes out.
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slime
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Re: Thoughts on and plans for Apple's switch to ARM?

Post by slime »

Jasoco wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 12:12 am Are there issues with porting Löve fully to ARM/A-series processors? Stuff that is missing or doesn't have compatible libraries yet?
Nope, there shouldn't be any major issues with making arm64 binaries for LÖVE on macOS.
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